I just ran across this show tonight, and wasn't really planning to watch it. But when I saw that 2 of the 8 celebrities are planning to cook vegetarian or vegan meals throughout the competition, I was intrigued! It's so rare to actually see meatless cooking on the Food Network, so hopefully this will be a good thing.

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I was just coming on here to start this very thread! I'm so excited to see vegan chefs, rather than having veganism be the challenge that the regular chefs bisque about. I also kind of love that Kathy Najimi is cooking vegan because her daughter is vegan. After the Pet Peeve thread on here, it's nice to see family being supportive.

Guy seemed supportive of the vegetarian(s). (I forget if he got one or both of them.) I hope this continues. Usually in shows like this, the contestants get stuck having to cook a randomly selected protein (read: meat), often against their will.

In other news, how pathetic was Gilbert Godfried? (sp?) TWO peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?! On a COOKING SHOW?!

My mother is always telling me it'll be too hard to cook for me now that I'm vegan (because she lives really far away and I have not seen her since I went vegan). But she watches this Rachael and Guy show, so I am hoping she at least can see that it isn't as hard as she thinks. If Kathy Najimy can cook exclusively vegan for her daughter, so can my mom!

I kind of felt like he knew he was in over his head and made the second one as a way to get kicked off gracefully. He is a comedian, he did something funny, and it kind of lets him save face. And I was glad they loved the hummus so there was one vegan dish they really loved.

Ya, total bummer. I actually like the tempeh bacon they were using. They said it was bitter and would not crisp. So they tossed it. It does not really crisp but if they chopped it and fried it in a bit of olive oil it would have crisped and the flavor would be more smoky...They gave it a lazy try...

Ya, total bummer. I actually like the tempeh bacon they were using. They said it was bitter and would not crisp. So they tossed it. It does not really crisp but if they chopped it and fried it in a bit of olive oil it would have crisped and the flavor would be more smoky...They gave it a lazy try...

is it the lightlife stuff in the package? did she just put it directly on the sandwich without cooking it first? that's so sad.

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It did not look like they tried real hard though...Come on, you get it out of the package and you can crisp it up with olive oil. If it is still not crispy enough I would have chopped it, made 'bacon' bit strings and used it as a component...

I'm a bit disappointed that the veg chefs in this challenge aren't representing well but then again, when I heard that the football player (Hynes?) had never used a food processor before in his life but still considered himself a really avid cook I kinda knew then, you know, that maybe he wasn't as avid as he thought because I can't IMAGINE living without my food pro, I have it out several times a week.

In other news, there's a Canadian show called Recipe to Riches which last round included at least three vegan recipes that were in the top three in each of their category. None of those recipes won the grand prize but you know, the vegan recipes were embraced just as openly as the other recipes seemed to be without too many ignorant comments that something's "less than" because it's vegan and so forth. So I saw that as Food Network progress.

It seems like Rachel & Guy have considerably more control over what's being made than the actual contestants do. I mean, with the exception of Dean & Carnie's desserts, every dish was suggested by R & G. They were even the ones asking most of the questions with the kids.

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I dunno, Kathy made mac and cheese in the last episode I saw and didn't make any to-do about using vegan cheese. I think it was dairy. She is saying she's cooking vegetarian now although she described the cooking she does for her daughter as vegan.